It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, August 19th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Sen. Eric Barlow won the GOP nomination for Wyoming governor Tuesday, over Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the 14-year legislator will face Democratic nominee Kenneth Casner, and Constitution Party nominee Rebecca Bextel at the Nov. 3 general election.
“We actually called that one early, and I know it got a little tight there at the end because Senator Barlow was weathering a massive attack campaign, including falsehoods, and so I've wondered, you know, is is this going to get a little feisty at the end as people maybe pivot away from him based on some of this negative advertising. He basically said ‘we weren't running against anyone; we were running for Wyoming.’”
Barlow was first elected to the Wyoming Legislature in 2012 and rose to the rank of House Speaker in 2021. Following a Wyoming tradition, not uniformly kept, of seeking higher office after his speaker term, Barlow was elected to the state Senate in 2022.
Read the full story HERE.
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Secretary of State Chuck Gray won the Republican nomination to the U.S. House Tuesday — over eight other GOP challengers. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Gray will face Libertarian Shawn Johnson and Democratic nominee Lisa Kinney in the general election Nov. 3rd.
“It was a lot of public messaging where you had Steve Freeze saying, ‘This is a two-man race. I'm the one who can beat Chuck Gray.’ Chuck Gray turning around and telling everyone that Kevin Christensen was in second place. Lo and behold, Frees and Christensen did split that second place vote, giving Gray the win.”
Gray declared his U.S. House run in late December after U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis touched off a round of musical chairs by announcing she would not run for another term.
Read the full story HERE.
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The major upset of Wyoming's primary election night wasn’t about one particular candidate. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports nearly all of the Freedom Caucus members and Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates, fell.
“It was a massacre of the Freedom Caucus. So we did see a couple holdouts like Ben Hornock, Bill Alamon, hanging on there in their Republican primaries, but other than that, we saw Freedom Caucus heavies like John Bear, Ken Pentegraft, Chip Nyman fall to their non-Freedom Caucus or even anti-Freedom Caucus opponents.”
In 2024, the Freedom Caucus gained control of the House.
Read full story HERE.
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The White House is saying a last minute text blast claiming President Trump endorsed Reid Rasner for U.S. House is false. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that White House political director Matt Brasseaux says anyone suggesting an endorsement in that race, “is just incorrect and false.”
“Around 1p.m. on election day, six hours before the polls were set to close, a lot of Wyomingites received a mass text saying paid for by Reid Rasner for Why Wyoming and that he had received Trump's endorsements. Now I have yet to confirm whether Rasner actually sent this text or whether he was spoofed somehow, but I instantly started reaching out to the White House and the White House instant, very quickly got on it, got in touch with me, and we were able to get the story out. President Trump did not endorse Reid Rasner or anyone in the race, and the White House said that anyone suggesting that was false.”
The eleventh-hour text blast hit untold masses of Wyoming voters around 1 p.m. Tuesday, saying, “I am proud to have President Trump’s ENDORSEMENT in my longstanding, respected, and hardfought bid before running for US Congress to purchase and complete a major Wyoming business.”
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
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Speculative crypto is out and blockchain is in. That's the message from a who's who of digital finance CEOs in Jackson about the future of virtual economies. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports one expert says digital finance is growing up and out of “our puberty phase.”
“As things have gone along, crypto is evolving. You know, before it was a lot of meme coins and Bitcoin and this coin and that coin, and now what they're really looking at for use cases are what's called the blockchain, and that's just kind of a digital diary of every transaction where you can add a page, but you can't take a page away, and so it's like an indelible record. And these are finding a lot of use cases out there in the real world.”
Around 500 of the most powerful CEOs and executives in the digital asset space have converged on Jackson Hole for their own version of a “Little Davos” economic forum, which is held annually in Poland, with many believe the industry is approaching a pivotal moment – a moment when they can say they are speculative no more. They’re all grown up.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Kinnear woman has pleaded not guilty to two felonies after years of accusations involving her Great Pyrenees livestock dogs roaming other properties, chasing cattle and killing calves. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that a rancher who’s lost calves says, “We’re just tired of it.”
“Kerri Johnson pleaded not guilty to two felony counts on Friday in Fremont County District Court. This has been a years-long dispute between her livestock guardian dogs and neighboring ranchers. Johnson also faces four separate citations for ‘animal at large,’ so the courts have decided to do two separate trials. They've condensed her citations, and there will be a bench trial in September. And on the felony charges, she will face a jury trial in November.”
The court dates mark the latest escalation in what has been a bitter fight over Johnson's livestock guardian dogs, which neighboring ranchers say have repeatedly left their property, chased cattle and killed calves. Johnson has portrayed a starkly different story publicly, saying her dogs are working livestock guardians and alleging that some have been shot or disappeared.
Read the full story HERE.
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The 72-year-old, 50-foot control tower at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport is about to be replaced with a new $30 million, 157-foot tower. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the Casper facility is the only airport in the state with a tower staffed by Federal Aviation Administration controllers.
“It's going to be much higher. It's going to allow controllers to look out from about 132 feet at their eye level, which, according to the airport director, gives them a lot more visibility on planes coming in, on the runways, on the flight line. The pilot I talked to said that you know what's good is that there is an air traffic control tower. He said that you know most most airplanes most airports across the country do not have airport control towers, and so he said the fact that you have somebody looking over the runway telling you if there's antelope on the runway or birds on the runway or whatever's going on around the area that that's really a good safety and additive safety feature for pilots.”
Airport Director Glenn Januska said federal grant money he requested from the COVID era finally came through, allowing him to green-light the project, which will stand nearly 160 feet tall when accounting for its antennas.
Read the full story HERE.
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Laramie County Community College President Joe Schaffer on Monday announced plans to change the school's name to Wyoming State College. Cowboy State Daily’s Kerry Drake reports that the president says the reason for the name change boils down to one word: Survival.
“The president of the college, Joe Schaefer, kind of gave us all a crash course in rebranding, particularly with community colleges. it really is behooves the college to take a focus on regional recruiting and the way they're going to do that is through rebranding. They said that a lot of people didn't realize if the further you get away from Laramie County, people don't know where Laramie County Community College is. They think the town Laramie, they think Laramer County, Colorado.”
Schaffer, who has been at the helm of the Cheyenne two-year school for nearly 15 years, said the rebranding could cost close to $1 million but it is nevertheless crucial to future success.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
